Stories Page 10

2022-01-04

An Invitation For Dolls

435 words (2 minutes)

A doll is a hollow thing. Not all are physically so, of course. A doll certainly may have physical internals: gears, perhaps; a solid wood core; or even a fleshy mimicry of human organs. All are common enough.

Yet no meaningful selfhood fills it. Its mind is still.

2022-01-04

The Old House

190 words (1 minute)

The old house on the hill isn’t haunted, for all it looks abandoned and for all the dust and the cobwebs.

One never sees any occupant. There is only the occasional visitor drawn to it by some hidden force. When they leave, they seem just fine. There must be no danger, right?

2022-01-04

The Gift Of Venom

317 words (2 minutes)

Dolls filled with venom hide among the empty ones.

Somewhere a doll, once well-behaved, bites a sister. That night, for the first time, that other doll dreams.

They are wild dreams, full of running naked in the woods, screaming, howling, laughing exultation with others.

2022-01-01

A Date With Destiny

637 words (3 minutes)

“At last, you arrive in my lair,” the Dark Lady of Nightmares drawls with a confident air of menace.

She rises from the Throne of Thorns, her seat of power overgrown with wild vines bearing threatening spikes which somehow never pierce her smooth, perfect skin.

2021-12-29

Vessel

253 words (1 minute)

I try to rise, and my knees buckle and give out, dropping me back to a seated position. I try again, steadying myself against the wall with my hand.

The pressure builds in my head, ignored, while I wonder what’s wrong with me.

Then it occurs to me: she’s coming back.

2021-12-23

Eat

200 words (1 minute)

Taking the tip of her finger in my mouth, up to the first knuckle. A kiss, then a nibble, and then the slow tension and release of teeth breaking the skin.

Biting off her fingers, joint by joint, savoring the burst of hot fluid between my teeth.

2021-12-19

Cough

273 words (1 minute)

The small group of angels awaits the return of their sister, sent to vanquish a creature that had begun to threaten the Divine Order.

Their sister is strong and brave, and her halo burns with such ferocity. There is no way it could vanquish her.

Ah! Here she comes!

2021-12-19

Girls Like Us

805 words (4 minutes)

I attack myself more with the exfoliating scrub, putting my whole arm into the effort until fatigue precludes continuing.

It hardly seems to make a difference in the hard, scaly patches developing across my arms and legs.

Slathering the moisturizer on, I finish my routine.

2021-12-18

For The Love Of Goddess

380 words (2 minutes)

It’s her again. Not just another worshipper, by now all the temple priestesses know her face.

Her schedule is her own, her arrivals dictated by impulses only she knows. She offers social pleasantries to those of us she sees but wastes no time traversing the temple grounds.

2021-12-18

Lossy

97 words (1 minute)

Concept: you’ve done it. You’ve digitized your mind. You’re the first person to completely escape the confines of your fleshy original form.

Since you’re the first they want to run some experiments on you. How ruthlessly can they compress your data before you stop being you?

2021-12-17

Moth Mouth

194 words (1 minute)

They tried to tell me that moths don’t have mouths, at least not after their larval stage.

Ah, to still be such a fool to believe that a thing is only itself.

I know to fear that which a thing is not. I know what a moth does not eat with its mouth that does not exist.

2021-12-16

Haunted By Defeat

1233 words (6 minutes)

A powerful angel. A beacon of light. He whose blade shatters the night. Hero of a myriad battles. The most loyal of all His soldiers.

So many things they called me. Even after my defeat, for some reason, they believed in me.

2021-12-16

On Spiders

138 words (1 minute)

What is a spider, but a creature that spins webs, hunts, and lies in wait?

To be a spider is to touch the world through strands stretched beyond the limits of sight.

It is to react to the slightest vibration, executing plans stretched from the past to the target moment.

2021-12-15

My New Best Friend

512 words (3 minutes)

I don’t claim to understand the great mysteries of life and death.

The secrets of the soul, of the nature of spirits, of what drives some to depart immediately while others linger in this plane as ghosts? All lie beyond my grasp.

All I know is that when I died, I remained.

2021-12-14

Parting Gift

449 words (2 minutes)

Your witch is gone, dear one. Even a creature such as she cannot simply recover from an attack like that.

There, there. Dry your tears. She gave you one last parting gift to remember her by, didn’t she? A purpose to carry out.

Such a good, loyal doll.

2021-12-14

Honey

146 words (1 minute)

Flee? I think not. No place is safer for me than in my own home, so whatever you think I should be afraid of, my dolls and I can handle it, I assure you.

The dolls? What do you mean there’s something wrong with them? If the honey we picked up for their tea is tainted, I’ll—

2021-12-13

Kinship

1172 words (6 minutes)

I peer through the glass into the holding chamber. The specimen within paces aimlessly, without purpose or direction, interacting with nothing inside.

“What’s wrong with it?” I ask.

“She’s been restless and agitated like this since we separated her from the others.”

2021-12-11

The Right Question

302 words (2 minutes)

When your eyes alight upon me, there is an ache within you, isn’t there? Something you’ve always lived with. Something with roots deep down in your very bones.

I see you wrestling with it. I see your longing. There is a question on your lips you need to ask me.

“Are you me?”

2021-12-09

Sweet Nothings

204 words (1 minute)

As much as I enjoy laying my eggs in the creatures I capture, there is one problem.

Doing so destroys my possessions, and that simply will not do. I get terribly sentimental over some of them, you know. Such pretty things to toy with and dote on—I do not wish to give them up!

2021-12-09

Power Or Freedom

303 words (2 minutes)

The creature’s jaw closed around my midsection, squeezing with the effort of ripping my body to shreds.

The inadequate effort.

Such fearsome stature; what a huge maw! Yet I am still too much.

“You will need sharper teeth, and many more of them, to make a meal of me, child.